TWILIGHT

It's Mormon porn, S&M Mormon porn. And that's exactly why this thing is blowing the roof off the box office, right now, quality of the final product be damned. It's safe sex for the bible kids ...and some of their parents too. Creepy nonsex, mind you, but that's just an extra level to the appeal. It's Kinks for Kids R'Us.

For those head-scratchers, who really are just WTF'ing all over this thing, here's the concept. An old virgin vampire in a hot boy's body really, really, wants to eat girl (see?! already with the obvious sex metaphor) because she smells magically delicious. Girl would gladly submit to the closest approximation of sex they can have, even if it means PAIN (yeah, vampire bites HURT BAD in this one) and death.

...Algolagnia, anyone? Well, apparently, $30 million+ worth, so far.

So, you can get past that concept and you still wanna see it, either for the LOL's or because you love being spanked. "How is it?", you ask.

Well, I thought Kristen Stewart looked like she was constipated or about to throw-up before most of her lines (check the scene after the finale, ESPECIALLY). Robert Pattinson, looked appropriately psycho. Both leads seemed to have some definite contempt for the characters.

There were long stretches of eye-rolling discomfort for me (JUST LIKE THE BOOK!), but there were also three or four light sitcom chuckles, courtesy of Daddy Swan and THE NDN's, as well.

I don't know. It wasn't awesomely bad enough to be bundles of fun to snark, too boring...But it wasn't solid two-star cable fair either. ...Well, maybe for Oxygen.

It was just this uniquely derivative thing, archetypes re-mixed for the WB crowd, via bad fan-fiction. This is book-to-movie marketing and targeted demographics 101.

If one good thing comes out of this, it's that perhaps filmmakers will FINALLY get the hint that if you hit the right spot with women (uh, that didn't sound right did it?), you can make a crapload of money. Start being a little more creative with the female-targeted films, producers!

...That and romantic -comedies almost universally SUCK.

TAKE A HINT HOLLYWOOD!

Although, if they didn't get it after Titanic...

I gotta say, I am most happy for Catherine Hardwicke, here. This movie is on the way to being the biggest grossing female-directed film ever.

I'm between this and this in my opinion of it, right now.

It's on the level of The Lost Boys without the depth/hotness of Keifer, nor the cleverly self-aware snarky-fun.

This film is too 'serious-business' even when they try to make jokes. And oh boy, the other teens don't realistically act like ANYBODY I've ever seen, forget teenagers. The circa' 1991 slang doesn't help.

PARENTS: Wow. This movie is sneaky. The finale especially has a lot of neat little questionable bits. SPOILERS...

Limbs are broken for amusement. A body is ripped to shreds and burned, while pretty people dance around the fire in celebration, and our heroine is saved and almost killed by one of the most obvious visual vampire metaphors for oral sex I've ever seen on film, O-face included.

...But all of that will likely escape your tween girls, so bring 'em! They'll love it.


P.S. For those of you who might think I'm being too generous in my comparison to The Lost Boys. Seriously, y'all are looking through nostalgia-tinged glasses. Remember, the greasy bare-chested guy playing the sax? Yes, it's awesome, awesomely bad, so don't trip.

20 years from now, people will be looking at Twilight through the same glasses. Heck, they already got the fandom pair on.